To evaluate the impact of an exercise program organized into supervised walking groups in subjects with type 2 diabetes.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Fifty-nine diabetic subjects were randomized to a control group receiving standard lifestyle recommendations or an intervention group assigned to three supervised walking sessions per week and counseling. Changes in metabolic features, weight, 6-min walk test, prescription of antidiabetic medications, and overall physical activity were assessed.

RESULTS

Functional capacity and overall physical activity were higher in the intervention group, whereas metabolic changes were not different between groups after 4 months. However, in subjects who attended at least 50% of scheduled walking sessions, changes in A1C and fasting glucose were greater than in control subjects. Discontinuation or reduction of antidiabetic drugs occurred in 33% of these patients versus 5% of control subjects (P < 0.05).

Survival estimates help individualize goals of care for geriatric patients, but life tables fail to account for the great variability in survival. Physical performance measures, such as gait speed, might help account for variability, allowing clinicians to make more individualized estimates.

Objective

To evaluate the relationship between gait speed and survival.

Design, Setting, and Participants

Pooled analysis of 9 cohort studies (collected between 1986 and 2000), using individual data from 34 485 community-dwelling older adults aged 65 years or older with baseline gait speed data, followed up for 6 to 21 years. Participants were a mean (SD) age of 73.5 (5.9) years; 59.6%, women; and 79.8%, white; and had a mean (SD) gait speed of 0.92 (0.27) m/s.

Main Outcome Measures

Survival rates and life expectancy.

Results

There were 17 528 deaths; the overall 5-year survival rate was 84.8% (confidence interval [CI], 79.6%–88.8%)and 10-year survival rate was 59.7% (95%CI, 46.5%–70.6%). Gait speed was associated with survival in all studies (pooled hazard ratio per 0.1 m/s, 0.88; 95% CI, 0.87–0.90; P<. 001). Survival increased across the full range of gait speeds, with significant increments per 0.1 m/s. At age 75, predicted 10-year survival across the range of gait speeds ranged from 19% to 87% in men and from 35% to 91% in women. Predicted survival based on age, sex, and gait speed was as accurate as predicted based on age, sex, use of mobility aids, and self-reported function or as age, sex, chronic conditions, smoking history, blood pressure, body mass index, and hospitalization.

Conclusion

In this pooled analysis of individual data from 9 selected cohorts, gait speed was associated with survival in older adults.

The smoking epidemic in Australia is characterised by historic levels of prolonged smoking, heavy smoking, very high levels of long-term cessation, and low current smoking prevalence, with 13% of adults reporting that they smoked daily in 2013. Large-scale quantitative evidence on the relationship of tobacco smoking to mortality in Australia is not available despite the potential to provide independent international evidence about the contemporary risks of smoking.

Physical activity’s role in promoting health is highlighted in public health campaigns, news and current affairs, reality television and other programs. An investigation of audience exposure, beliefs and reactions to media portrayals of physical activity offers insights into the salience and influence of this communication. An audience reception study was conducted involving in-depth interviews with 46 adults in New South Wales, Australia. The sample was stratified by gender, age group, area of residence and body mass index. Most respondents could only recall media coverage of physical activity with prompting. Television was the primary channel of exposure, with reality television the dominant source, followed by news programs and sports coverage. The messages most readily recalled were the health risks of inactivity, especially obesity, and the necessity of keeping active. Physical activity was regarded as a matter of personal volition, or for children, parental responsibility. Respondents believed that the media had given physical activity inadequate attention, focused too heavily on risks and not provided practical advice. In Australia, there is a need to counter the framing of physical activity by reality television, and engage the media to generate understanding of the socioecological determinants of inactivity. Physical activity campaigns should deliver positive and practical messages.

A range of digitized health promotion practices have emerged in the digital era. Some of these practices are voluntarily undertaken by people who are interested in improving their health and fitness, but many others are employed in the interests of organizations and agencies. This article provides a critical commentary on digitized health promotion. I begin with an overview of the types of digital technologies that are used for health promotion, and follow this with a discussion of the socio-political implications of such use. It is contended that many digitized health promotion strategies focus on individual responsibility for health and fail to recognize the social, cultural and political dimensions of digital technology use. The increasing blurring between voluntary health promotion practices, professional health promotion, government and corporate strategies requires acknowledgement, as does the increasing power wielded by digital media corporations over digital technologies and the data they generate. These issues provoke questions for health promotion as a practice and field of research that hitherto have been little addressed.

New evidence suggests that food companies are unlikely to meet a pledge under the government’s voluntary scheme to reduce the calories in their products by 5%. So what hope is there for the campaign to reduce sugar by 40% without regulation, asks Jonathan Gornall?

Since its launch in March 2011, the voluntary “responsibility deal” with industry has been the mainstay of the government’s public health policy in England. It has also been one of the most valuable tools at the disposal of a sugar industry keen to persuade would be regulators that it is a good corporate neighbour that can keep its own house in order.

Under the umbrella of the deal’s food network, all the major supermarkets and key manufacturers—including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and leading confectionery companies—have signed up to one or more of nine collective “pledges.” These have included commitments to introduce front of pack nutrition labelling and remove trans fats from products. But the main initiative, inspired by the government’s 2011 “Call to action” over obesity, has been calorie reduction.

Thirty nine companies signed up to “support and enable our customers to eat and drink fewer calories through actions such as product/menu reformulation, reviewing portion sizes, education and information, and actions to shift the marketing mix towards lower calorie options.”

Whether any of this has had any meaningful impact on public health will remain unclear until at least late 2015, when the Department of Health says it plans to publish the findings of an independent evaluation of the deal it has commissioned from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Importance Every year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspects several hundred clinical sites performing biomedical research on human participants and occasionally finds evidence of substantial departures from good clinical practice and research misconduct. However, the FDA has no...

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is considered to be the most common cause of developmental disability, affecting more than 1 % of the general population in North America.Inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity afflict 50–90 % of children with FASD and are 3–9 times more common than in the general population. Of importance, a large proportion of children with FASD are affected by oppositional defiant/conduct disorder (ODD/CD), including lack of social judgment and failure to learn from experience. These devastating numbers are contrasted by almost no pharmacological research into treatment of these pervasive conditions in FASD. This review focuses on analyzing the published evidence on the effectiveness and safety of therapy for disruptive behaviors in FASD. Often, the child afflicted by FASD will not be allowed to participate in class activities without such therapies, which makes such analysis critical.

Besides female sex, advancing age is the biggest risk factor for breast cancer. Reproductive factors that increase exposure to endogenous estrogen, such as early menarche and late menopause, increase risk, as does the use of combination estrogen-progesterone hormones after menopause. Nulliparity and alcohol consumption also are associated with increased risk.

Women with a family history or personal history of invasive breast cancer, ductal carcinoma in situ or lobular carcinoma in situ, or a history of breast biopsies that show benign proliferative disease have an increased risk of breast cancer.

Increased breast density is associated with increased risk. It is often a heritable trait but is also seen more frequently in nulliparous women, women whose first pregnancy occurs late in life, and women who use postmenopausal hormones and alcohol.

Exposure to ionizing radiation, especially during puberty or young adulthood, and the inheritance of detrimental genetic mutations increase breast cancer risk.

A social media campaign asking people to nominate leading women in global health is underway with 100 women nominated so far. Sharmila Devi reports.

A list of leading women working in global health is being compiled by people around the world who are nominating their choices via Twitter as part of an effort to showcase female leadership.

A preliminary list of 100 women has been created and the list is now being expanded to 200 women, said Ilona Kickbusch, director of the Global Health Programme at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.

The definitive text on health promotion, this book covers both the knowledge-base and the process of planning, implementing and evaluating successful health promotion programmes. This new edition features a companion website developed with an international team of contributors to support teaching and enhance learning.

A hashtag is the wonder of the past decade. It was born to address the need to organize and make sense of the overwhelming social media buzz. Thanks to active and creative user adoption, hashtag support has been added to most popular social media platforms.

This article shows how different social media sites make use of hashtags. Most importantly, it shares some insight into how you can make the most effective use of hashtags for your brand.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.